Aye, well done and well deserved... if only because he's the only German who ever lived who knows how to pronounce 'bomb, bomber' and bombing' correctly. :-) Top notch old chap.
Germans love to get down to the details and disect the problem. Thus it doesn't matter if it is invading nighbours, rebuilding an economy, building cars or tanks or making documentaries- they love in depth informative infotainment. And Bismark delivers, and boy he does it good.
I was lucky enough to interview and to get to know one of the ladies in those statues, Eileen Younghusband. She died only a couple of years ago but I knew her well enough to say that she would have thanked you for this video. She always wanted people to know about the work of the Filter Room. You have done her and her comrades proud with this video.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Now that I maybe have a chance I have to say a very big thank you for making such good content. One part of the WW II aviation history that I haven't really seen covered that has a lot of interesting history is the Finnish air force during the war. They got a lot of things done with what little they had. A lot of amazing stories about good pilots.
Nice video, and as a former member of the Royal Observer Corps (we were "Royalled" for our work in the Battle of Britain), thank you for the mentions. However Observer Corps posts were not only on the coast but inland as well, otherwise we would not be able to track raids once they crossed the coast.
For the last few years I've been pretty much living and working in Uxbridge yet have never checked out the bunker, which is about a mile from me as I am keying this. I must take remedial action.
As someone that works in Air Operations in the modern Royal Air Force, I’m pleased to see the RAF sponsoring you to share our history with a wider, younger audience.
People think it was radar that won the Battle of Britain. In fact, it was the whole air defence system that won the battle. Excellent video on a war winning organisation.
Excellently done video! Sponsored by the RAF! Bismarck is the best aviation historian on RU-vid! Now, we need to look at the Luftwaffe's command structure and how they felt about this British ingenious design
I suggest Bismarck gets in touch with the German air force school at Fürstenfeldbruck. They also have a department of history there and it is just a few km from the air museum in schleissheim near Munich.
Ah you should have told me you were visiting Bentley Priory Museum . I fly over it all the time. It's a way point for flying a southerly circuit at Elstree Aerodrome. Drop me a PM if you want to come flying some time.
i guess im asking randomly but does anybody know of a method to get back into an Instagram account..? I somehow forgot the password. I would appreciate any assistance you can give me.
@Joe Jermaine thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site thru google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now. Takes a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
Your English is getting better bis, and this video's made me think. Wow, home boy bis who loves aiplanes and play games on RU-vid is now being sponsored by RAF. Congrats bis
The publican in my local has one of those Observer Corp sector clocks, which I helped get working again. They were slave clocks supplied by the GPO and kept in sync down special phone lines. Really, just an adaptation of the slave clocks used in government offices all over the country. All the Observer Corp clocks had hand-painted 18 inch dials in a mahogany case. The clock in the video has 5 minute sectors, which was the case at the time of the Battle of Britain, but later in the war they were repainted with two-and-a-half minute sectors to give better time resolution and more suited to aircraft that could travel more distance in the same time. The master/slave clock system was a military secret at the time. The RAF stations had sector clocks too, but of a different design (with outward pointing triangles) and were self-powered with silk-screened dials and the RAF emblem. They are nothing like as rare, although originals of both are very valuable.
So basically the RAF had the first Integrated Air Defence System (IADS), knitting sensors and shooters together into an orchestrated unity. Great video!
It took the Krauts a while but they finally got a German agent in close to examine the system. Surely victory will come now that their secrets are revealed? Not going to lie, the quality of production of this video astounded me. Shot like a well funded documentary but concise and efficient. And sponsored by the RAF of all organizations. My how this channel has grown since the days of War Thunder.
@@hannecatton2179 I'm an American with German ancestry and "kraut" is a lot easier than getting called "squarehead" or something. (which was one of the few slurs that stung when I was a kid) Yeah, we eat sauerkraut, no, I can't help it that I was born with this jawline.
Thank you for this Bismarck - I doubt you can imagine just what an impact you make. My Great Grandmama (Mitzi's mum) and a Great Great Aunt (Leven's mother's sister-in-law) worked behind the scenes on this system of Command .. and they have shared some stories with me (because they really 'like' you .. Hmmm?) Like so many of that generation, now swiftly dwindling, they did not speak very much about their roles, and because they knew a number of languages Margot (104 years young) and Tulia (just 103) became more involved in the sneaky-beaky bits; your little visit brought back so many memories, it is a delight to hear them. P.S. Grampa Leven wants to share a cartoon that sounds just like him and his brother Eugenio (it sounds like Oi-gen-yo) when they are speaking a form of German (throw in loads of slangey Italian/ Churchy Latin type words - and you'll have them off pat). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S0Auzn8UeD8.html I hope you enjoy.
Love the system emphasis. It's really showing the extend to which support structures where developed and why sharp edge of spitfires squadrons was so well aimed. It also shows how small advantages accumulated throught whole campaign gave victory! Yay!
Mr Bismark, please don't forget the Luftwaffe lads, they were brave as well. I didn't know about the 15 min colour segments until now, well presented. Excellent video as always, thanks.
Why does everyone feel the need to *leap* to the defense of German pilots? Give it a rest, most of the officers were members of the Party and complicit in genocide, but no one is saying they acted cowardly in the air. They were only cowards at home
Luftwaffe brave ? They thought they were going to slaughter Fighter Command in weeks with their superior numbers and flying skills paving the way for invasion, the bully got a thrashing thank God.
Brave boys shooting WW1 Biplanes out of the skies over Spain, Poland and Russia and strafing fleeing civilians for a laugh. I have no sympathy for soldiers of tyranny, be they Luftwaffe or the Indian Colonial force
Amazing video sir. Great filming, very lively and precise at the same time, the production and staging are also a complete success in my opinion. The GSM was such an ingenious system. Exactly the kind of video I would want to see on the RU-vid front page even when I'm not connected to my account. Congratz for the sponsoring, I'm glad you managed to land safely, maybe they should reactivate this system! Fly safe!
Thanks for enlightening this subject for me. I always suspected that the air plotters and air command / organization were far more influential than previously thought. Radar, (chain home) was an important innovation but together with air command and control it was a battle winning combination that deserves the attention you have given to it.
Just checked Winston Churchill’s book and he describes this visit on September 15th 1940. It’s fascinating. He describes the room being like a small theatre with the “large scale map table around which perhaps twenty highly trained young men and women with their telephone assistants” “opposite us where the theatre curtain would be covering the entire wall was a gigantic blackboard divided into 6 columns with electric bulbs for the six fighter stations” He goes on in more detail and describes the events that unfolded. “Hitherto I had watched in silence. I now asked “What other reserves have we? There are none” said Air Vice-Marshall Park. In an account which he wrote about it afterwards he said that at this I “looked grave” Well I might. What losses should we not suffer if our refuelling planes were caught on the ground by raids of “40plus” or “50plus”! The odds were great, our margins small, the stakes infinite.”
The video work is slick. Lots of panning shots that FIT - i.e. they aren't just done because they're available but because they add something to the emphasis. The sound is slick too. Walking, talking and tracking. Good work to your whole crew!!
Really well done professional video. It’s great to see how you have evolved from video game play thrus with funny banter to top notch historical vids. Good job!
Air Marshal Dowding was a genius as he: 1) Knew the battle was going to generate a lot of information rapidly 2) Realized that he needed to process that information quickly 3) Knew that the product of the process had to be simple, understandable and capable of changing with time.
Good show! Very clear explanation of the operations. Some mention should be given to intelligence from Bletchley Park and RAF Cheadle, which helped inform Dowding and Park of both high level decripted comms and low grade cipher traffic from Y stations.
Very well produced and on the mark, did not detect any B.S.. A.V.M. Lord Dowding was a Leader with Great Vision and Great respect for the Safety of His Chicks... Lest we Forget. I was and still am extremely proud to have served in the R.A.F.
Bentley Priory is one of the last places I visited with my late father. Hugely recommend a visit. Excellent vid as usual, sir! congrats on the RAF sponsor
Another well presented video. Please could you do some on the Luftwaffe? Everyone can visit museums, and read books and media covers the Battle of Britain well, but it's always good to see the other side. How did the Luftwaffe plan it's assault on Britain, and how did they continue to put up tough resistance to the Day and nightie bombing raids late 44 into 45. As you are a German speaker with superb English it would be great to see the other perspective!! Keep up the great work on your channel!
Excellent documentary, many thanks. The only thing I might add is that you could have covered the activities at Bentley Priory in a little more depth. I thought I knew the Battle of Britain story well but a visit to the Priory (a wonderful day out by the way) opened my eyes to the value of the Filter Room. The sexy and glamorous Operations Room gets all the attention and the team in the Priory Filter Room are often overlooked. You showed a brief glimpse of the chart they used but could have explored it more. The radar stations were poor in deducing enemy bearing (and height) but could electronically measure range very accurately indeed. The Filter Room map has arcs of distance from each station and the WAAFs were allocated a station each and compared, continually, the range reports from "their" station with the girls on either side using where those range arcs crossed to produce a highly accurate "fix" for the enemy aircraft, which the Operations Room then relied on to manage successful interceptions. But a very good video, Well done.
A very interesting presentation on data integration and data presentation that demonstrates that it could all be done without computers - you just needed enough people who knew what they were doing, working in a co-ordinated manner. Simple but brilliant. Very well presented and illustrates extremely clearly how the Few were enabled by the Many. Good work!!
All the computers do is speed up the data flow, other than that the machines are quite dumb and you really need somebody in the data chain who knows what he (or she) is doing in the management of information. Even today, in an air defence centre a good half of the people working in there are just maintaining and cleaning up the picture so that the fighter / weapons controllers can do their side of the job more effectively.
The architect of this system, Hugh Dowding, was an interesting guy and worthy of a vid to himself. A raging introvert, and so deeply affected by the casualties suffered by the RAF that he tried to contact his dead pilots.
It was nice that you mentioned the work of the Observer Corps,some videos on the B of B don't,there were some things not quite right.The Observer Corps covered the whole country not just the coastal areas,even to the Shetland Isles eventually, with 40 of their own operations centres feeding information in real time to the RAF. For their work during the B of B they were given the Royal title in April 1941.There is only one of the 40 Ops Rooms left now and that is in Bury St.Edmunds in Suffolk in the Guildhall.I will be there on the next open day on the 30th October to explain how the Observer Corps system worked using our Plotting Table and Long Range Board and how the RAF received the information they needed to counter the German aircraft.
Today we are told about data science and things like that, but just look at this : they communicte coordonates and activity of hundreds of planes hundreds of miles, they organize everything in a easy to read and write way,back in 1940. That's really incredible
And a bunch of young men gave their all......never forget, never forgive. A battle we never wanted to fight, but we did and we pulled through with our allies.
My grandad was an AA gunner at RAF Kenley...it was heavyly hit in a raid and my grandad, loss some of his sight in his right eye, which resulted in him being send to the Shetland Islands. He was so upset able it as his unit was send to North Africa.
Fun fact: All the people working there had to have the 'kings English' accent to prevent confusion over what was said. If you had a different accent, well, then you're out of luck.
By god how far you have gotten, you went from simply presenting animations and presentation and referencing books commonly, to being sponsored by the RAF! And your video quality is so amazing too! Documentary-level, 3000x better than what is presented on the "History Channel".
This was such a good system that the USN had observers placed in these facilities. Later, combined with British technology of RADAR, the USN aircraft carrier fleets were able to fight a technically and numerically superior and better organized Japanese foe in 1942. This system allowed the USN and USMC to effectively use their paltry fighter forces early war. Were the Germans able to develop a comparable system to intercept the Allied bombers?
Poland also had robust air detection system in place at the start of WWII. Luftwaffe had to rething Warsaw bombing campaing soon after it's start due to unacceptable losses, and didn't get definitive upper hand untill territory loss and materiel shortages didn't took it's effect.
I genuinely think that the BBC should commission you to present a documentary on the Battle Of Britain. Not that what you're doing isn't good enough! Great work mate, excellent flow and structure with detailed but not overwhelming explanations as always
Excellent biz! Was that the visit when Winston Churchill asked how many reserve fighters were available. Only to be told there were none. Everything was in the air.
Good episode. The only things missing from it was a discussion of the 'Battle of Barking Creek' a friendly fire incident early in the war that exposed a few problems with the system that were able to be solved before the Battle of Britain proper got started. The other is that during WWI when the Germans launched a Zepplin/Conventional aircraft assault against London the British evolved something that aside from radar was pretty close to the Dowding system as it evolved prior to WWII. Both might be worth episodes.
A conversation somewhere in occupied France, August, 1940: 'What happened, adjutant Rudel? Why are you terrified, Gruppencommandeur Galland?' 'A terrible map, sir. It fought us down like children! We've lost the war!' Oh, wait.
Yes, I get a kick out of Bismark presenting the defense against the Luftwaffe... and explaining all that could have gone wrong... but omitting what would have happened if there had been an Axis spy involved. My Uncle survived 35 missions with the 15th Airforce (B-24s)... he said the Germans always knew the intended bombing target before the air crews were briefed.
Klasse doku! Noch ein bisschen länger und du wirst wie David Attenborough mit deutschen Akzent. Super! Great documentary! Just a little bit longer and you will be like a David Attenborough with a german accent. Superb!
